Plans, sections, elevations, details, joinery, bathrooms, electrical layouts, finishes and specifications. Engineering coordinated in.
You have council approval and a set of drawings, and a builder has just told you he needs more before he can price it properly. That is not him being difficult. The approved drawings answered a different question.
Development Application drawings exist to demonstrate that the proposal complies with the planning rules — form, siting, height, setbacks, character. They are not instructions for building anything. Construction drawings are: plans, sections, elevations, details, joinery, bathrooms, electrical layouts, finishes and specifications, with the engineering coordinated in so every sheet agrees with every other sheet.
This is the least interesting stage of the project and it carries about a third of my fee, which is a hard thing to explain and an easy thing to resent. So here is the argument in economic terms rather than aesthetic ones. Builders price uncertainty as risk. Every gap in a drawing set is a decision the builder has to make, price defensively, or come back to you about later as a variation.
Builders price uncertainty as risk, and you pay that margin whether or not you ever see it on the invoice.
Builders price uncertainty as risk, and you pay that risk margin. Thorough documentation removes the uncertainty, which is why this stage — the least exciting one — is the one that most reliably protects the budget. It is also where the largest share of the fee sits.
Faith, at the least rewarding moment. There is nothing to look at, the drawings are technical, and the client has been paying for months. This is where the relationship is tested and where trust built earlier is drawn down.
A thin set of drawings, priced with a large contingency because the builder is guessing. Every gap becomes a decision made on site by someone optimising for their own convenience, and the sum of those decisions is a house that resembles the drawings only in plan.
The largest share of the fee — about a third, sometimes more — sits on the least interesting stage, and I would rather explain that than let you discover it. Of every $100 spent on a typical renovation, $85 goes to the builder, $8 to me, $4 to consultants and $3 to authorities. Documentation is the part of that $8 which protects the $85. Builders price uncertainty as risk and you pay the risk margin. Removing the uncertainty is the whole job here.
DA drawings answer the planning question: does this comply with the City Plan. They show siting, form, height, setbacks and how the building sits in the street. Construction drawings answer the building question: how is this actually made. They carry dimensions, junctions, waterproofing details, structural coordination, joinery, electrical layouts and a specification. A council-approved plan is not a buildable plan, and the gap between the two is bigger than almost anyone expects the first time they meet it.
Detailed enough that the builder never has to guess, and never has to invent. The practical test is whether two builders pricing the same set would produce comparable quotes. If one carries a large allowance for something the other has priced exactly, the drawings weren't clear enough — and you will be comparing two documents that aren't describing the same house. Watch the specification as closely as the drawings. Most of the money in the difference between quotes lives in what materials and standards were actually named.
Under the standard Client Architect Agreement it covers the drawings and specifications needed for statutory approval, then the further drawings, schedules and details needed to actually build, plus coordinating and integrating the specialist consultants' work into one set. In practice for a Brisbane house that means the full plan set, sections and elevations, details, joinery and bathroom drawings, electrical and lighting layouts, a finishes schedule and a written specification — with the engineering drawings checked against all of it. This is also where the Building Approval application goes to the certifier.
You can, and for a simple job on an unconstrained site it sometimes works out. What you are buying is a thin set that leaves decisions unmade, and those decisions still get made — on site, quickly, by whoever is standing there, usually in the way that is easiest for them. Of every hundred dollars spent on a typical renovation, about eighty-five goes to the builder and about eight to the architect. Documentation is a portion of that eight, and its job is to protect the eighty-five. Saving on the small number to expose the large one is a poor trade.
Because it is the most hours, by a distance. Every detail drawn is a decision made once, in an office, instead of five times, on site, under time pressure. It is also the stage where mistakes are cheapest to find — a clash between the engineer's beam and the ceiling height shows up on a drawing, not in a phone call from a builder with a crane booked. You will experience this stage as silence and invoices. That is genuinely the hardest part of it, and worth naming in advance.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.